While thousands of people camped out last night in the hopes of snagging some of the amazing Black Friday deals happening around the country, Apple took a slightly different approach to capitalizing on the biggest shopping day of the year. Rather than place any discounts on its actual hardware or items, it offered gift cards of up to $150 with some purchases.
This is not the first time that Apple has decided to use a gift card program to provide discounts rather than a direct sale on its items. Earlier this year the company did something similar with its annual back-to-school sale, which saw deals ranging from $50 to $100.
The sale provides users with an Apple Store gift card with the purchase of any new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro or iMac. An iPad Air comes with a $75 gift card and an iPad Mini or iPad 2 included a $50 gift card. According to ComputerWorld, Apple also included gift cards with the purchase of an iPod Touch, iPod Nano and Apple TV as well as with select accessories like the Time Capsule backup drive and Nike's FuelBand.
Typically Apple isn't much for offering major deals on Black Friday but the new gift card system marks its biggest discount sale ever. For an entry-level 11-inch MacBook Air or a 16GB iPad Air, the gift card represents discounts of 15 percent compared to the 10 and 8 percent respectively from last year.
However, it's still not much to bring people clamoring to the Apple Store like they would any other Black Friday retailer. The discounts will only be realized unless someone already has plans to purchase an item through the technology.
Additionally, people won't be able to purchase the iPad Mini with Retina display and receive a gift card because the device is still in short supply.
